Tag: 2 Timothy

Whatever your preferred system of eschatology, there is no doubt according to Paul’s definition that we are living in the “last days.” He told Timothy that the last days would include “times of difficulty” (1 Timothy 3:1), and he described the people who would make it difficult. Such persons “will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (verses 2-4). But that’s all. You can’t collect five Poké Balls, or watch five minutes of cable news, without seeing people like that.

These times will be “difficult,” hard, troublesome. Diesel engines don’t run well on unleaded gas, and a wicked culture will clunk down the road. Sin not only makes the sinner stupid, sin makes a society deadly. A society of evil men will be a violent, dangerous society. These are the difficulties of our lives.

The worst part of all, though, comes in verse 5. Whether it applies to the final two adjectives alone (pleasure-lovers and not God-lovers) or to the entire list doesn’t make much difference. These are the kinds of people “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

They have the morphosin, the form. They know how to morph into giving a particular look. But it’s just a show. There is no actual life. Not only do they not have power, they refuse to have it. They wouldn’t want it if it was their only choice.

Paul told Timothy: “Avoid such people.” Good counsel. It’s also a good call to confession. We can’t play with any of these sins and not make it more difficult, for ourselves, and certainly for our worship. Be the people who are lovers of God rather than lovers of pleasure, having the appearance of godliness because you are strengthened by God.

The “man of God”…does not give fresh revelation himself, but rather is the man who has the compilation of that completed revelation in his hands. While he is not a prophet himself, he is the heir of the prophets. In other words, he is not limited by the cessation of the prophetic gift because, as it says here, he is “competent” or equipped for every good work. There is no task the minister will be called upon to perform that he is not equipped to perform through the Scriptures.